Dempsey and Baxandall: Coming up short on transportation

By Chris Dempsey and Phineas Baxandall/Guest Columnists

Sunday

Oct 28, 2018 at 12:07 AMOct 28, 2018 at 12:07 AM

Want a peek at Massachusetts’ transportation system five years from now? The state’s recently approved capital investment plan (CIP) provides that blueprint, spelling out how much money is set aside through 2023 for specific bridges, roads, public transit, and airports. The $17.3 billion plan says a lot about where we will be improving Massachusetts transportation - and also what will be missing.

Although Massachusetts is poised to make much-needed investments that help rebuild, repair, and revitalize essential components of the commonwealth’s transportation network, the CIP is simply not sufficient to build a modern transportation system that supports our economy and the needs of all who live and work here.

The CIP looks at three broad categories of investments: fix, upgrade, and expand. Together these make up 89 percent of CIP spending, while the remainder is allocated to local roadway repairs and planning overhead. Here is how the investments are broken down:

Fix. First, the CIP targets fixes for worn out infrastructure, such as potholed-roads, crumbling bridges, and decrepit trains and track. About half of the money for the next five years goes into this bucket. Considering the poor state of some of our basic but critical infrastructure, this makes sense to prioritize.

Upgrade. Next, the plan invests about 30 percent to modernize the transportation network to better serve us today and tomorrow. Most of this bucket is spent on roadway reconstruction and long-overdue improvements to the MBTA’s Red and Orange line vehicles, track, signals, and power improvements.

Expand. The remaining funding adds capacity to our future transportation system with the creation of new connections between places. This totals 11 percent, but most of that spending is the court-ordered extension of the Green Line to Somerville and Medford. Not counting that leaves less than 4 percent of the total budget for projects statewide.

It is commendable to see Massachusetts dedicating funding for many good, worthy projects in these three categories. But the projects that are not included tell an important story about our unresolved transportation needs. For instance:

- 462 sizeable, state-owned bridges are structurally deficient according to the state, 14 more than the previous year. The state has a target of getting that number down to 300, but that goal is not funded.

- Many rail and subway stations and bus stops are inaccessible to people with disabilities. The most recent estimates suggest a cost in the range of $2 billion beyond what is currently funded. This includes over 80 commuter rail stations, 35 rapid transit and light rail stations and thousands of bus stops, plus elevator repairs and replacements.

- South Station remains a bottleneck for thousands of commuters from the south and west of Boston. There is virtually no funding in the CIP to add capacity, let alone a more ambitious complement such as the proposed North-South Rail Link.

- The MBTA’s aging Green Line fleet requires replacement to make service more reliable. While the MBTA’s in-station advertising already touts the forthcoming new vehicles, the CIP provides no money for their production, previously pegged at a cost of $1.3 billion. New vehicles won’t happen during the next five years without additional investment.

- Similarly, South Coast Rail is scheduled to begin service by 2022, but most of the money for construction is missing from the CIP. It’s a political promise without a tangible funding plan.

The conversation on investment is not limited to projects. The Department of Transportation has indicated its staff would struggle to manage more projects, and the reductions to its workforce in recent years only exacerbate capacity concerns. To make these projects feasible, there may also need to be investment in the Department of Transportation itself to ensure quality and timeliness.

The question of whether we are investing enough is vital, because our statewide transportation system is not keeping up with the commonwealth’s expanding economy, and is doing little to help the regions that have been left behind. Adding to this problem is the housing shortage around major cities, which pushes families farther away from access to high-quality jobs. People around the state face grueling commutes in ever-worsening traffic congestion. In places without good public transit, people without cars are denied opportunities for economic advancement. The projects left off the CIP funding list embody and perpetuate these struggles and make it all too likely that they will continue in the future.

The state’s investment focus has been on reform and repair of core systems - but that’s what we should expect of government every day. Repairing yesterday’s infrastructure is necessary; it is also insufficient to handle tomorrow’s needs. Blueprints need to be paired with greenbacks.

Chris Dempsey is the director of Transportation for Massachusetts, a statewide coalition supporting a modern, clean and equitable transportation network. Phineas Baxandall is a senior policy analyst at the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, focusing on transportation and tax revenue, as well as local aid in the state budget.